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Peninsular Thinking A conversation about Bremerton, Port Orchard, Poulsbo, Silverdale, Bainbridge Island, Kingston, Manchester, Seabeck, Southworth, Suquamish, Belfair, Keyport, Olalla, Bangor, Hansville, Indianola, Port Gamble, Allyn, Port Ludlow, Gig Harbor and every once in a while something about the good folks who don't have the good fortune to live here.

Category Archives: Peninsular People

Called SODA PTSA for “Support of Different Abilities,” the
stand-alone, parent-teacher-student association, not affiliated
with a single school, is chartered by the state PTA and is open to
parents from all districts in Kitsap County. Stephenson wants to
fills a niche for families like hers, whose special needs and
interests aren’t always high on the radar of regular PTAs.
Stephenson and her spouse Harmony have three children, Auri, 11,
Toby, 4, and Sam 8, who has autism. Stephenson, a volunteer at
Sam’s school Hidden Creek Elementary, wants to build a playground
that children like Sam can enjoy. He prefers playing by himself,
spinning and the feel of different textures.

In the midst of trying to get SODA off the ground, Zac and
Harmony have had a rocky time that just got rockier.

Harmony since January has been receiving diagnosis and treatment
of what turned out to be a chronic illness that affected her
digestive tract. Harmony, the lone breadwinner of the family is not
able to work at this time.

Zac, a stay-at-home-mom, has not been able to work for some time
due to multiple health problems, including a work-related back and
neck injury. Both women have had surgeries since January. There’s
medication and therapy appointments for Sam. Toby, too, appears to
have some form of disability, which his parents are sorting
out.

On top of mounting medical bills, there was a fire last spring,
started by the family’s Springer spaniel who knocked over a heat
lamp trying to get at some baby chicks. And most recently, the
couple has had car problems.

“It seems like we just keep circling the drain,” Harmony
said.
On Aug. 20, Zac was trying to siphon gas out of one vehicle, which
is not working, into another, which is. She used an electric pump
that she didn’t know had a bare wire, and there was an explosion
that set her on fire. Zac’s face was badly burned, and although
she’s feeling better now, for some time she was crazed with
pain.

In that state, she left the house of a friend on foot, and when
the friend couldn’t immediately find her the alarm went out on
Facebook that Zac was missing. “Apparently, I owe people in Port
Orchard an apology,” Zac said. “It just kind of escalated. I wasn’t
running away. It wasn’t anything that was planned. I was just in so
much pain. Things had been really, really rough.”

Earlier this week, Zac said she is feeling better. Her face is
healing, and the pain is manageable. The family is doing OK for
food, between the food bank and public assistance. Harmony is
applying for disability assistance, which will help right the ship.
The family lives frugally — no cable for example — so they don’t
need much to live on. But transportation remains a problem. The van
is OK, but their truck needs work and the car is dead.

With everything going on SODA PTSA has been pushed to the back
burner, but it’s not dead by a long shot, Zac said.

“The PTA is still in place,” she said. “I had talked to Harmony
about stepping down because we have so much to deal with.”

On second thought, however, she will continue to head up the
organization and still hopes to see its efforts toward fully
accessible playgrounds spread to other schools and other
districts.

If anyone wants to help with fundraising and seeking
sponsorships, Zac would welcome it, but the best thing anyone could
do is join SODA PTSA for $15 a year, she said.

For information on SODA PTSA or to join, contact Stephenson at
509-378-6263 or go to https://www.facebook.com/sodaptsa.

To learn about forming your own special needs PTSA, contact your
Washington State PTA regional director at www.wastatepta.org.
Region 1 covers Clallam, Jefferson and Kitsap counties and includes
North Mason School District.

Peninsular Thinkers, you know your towns better than anyone
else. So what are the things you’d recommend to someone who’s never
set foot in the Pacific Northwest before? If your relative came
into town (and you liked that relative) what are the places,
attractions and restaurants you would insist they experience?

That’s the position that I’m in. My name is Miranda Davis and I
arrived in Kitsap County about two weeks ago to spend my summer
interning at the Sun. The plot twist? I’m from Kansas. I’m a senior
studying journalism at the University of Kansas and I drove two
thousand miles at the end of May and before that, I’d never been
west of Denver. Everything I thought I knew about the area before
arriving was from Grey’s Anatomy and Starbucks. I know, I’m
awful.

When I tell people I’m new here they say I’m so lucky, because
summer is the best time to experience the area, and I completely
agree. It also appears as if I brought my pink rain boots for
nothing.

So send in the things you think I have to see, eat and
experience before August 1st, and I’ll give them a try. Ideally, I
want to experience the things that you think of when you think of
the word “home,” so hopefully that includes a mix of tourist
attractions and things that are off the beaten path.

My rules:

I am willing to drive up to two hours each way if It’s
something I can do for the majority of the day. I also like taking
the ferry to Seattle but I plan on trekking it on foot once I get
into the city.

I’ve already been to the Space Needle and Pike Place Market (It
was so busy! There was too much happening around me! I ate a really
good grilled cheese!)

I have no diet restrictions and I will eat almost anything.
Seafood is growing on me every minute I’m up here. (However, bonus
points if you recommend an awesome cheeseburger, and double bonus
points if you recommend barbeque)

I’m not afraid of heights but I really dislike roller coasters.
Please don’t make me go on a roller coaster.

While mountains and large bodies of water are new to me, I like
hiking and swimming, but do not expect me to run a half
marathon.

I want to attend festivals and events and I’m 21 years old (so
yes, I would really like to know what craft beer I should be
purchasing at the grocery store)

I’ll post about the best of my experiences on the Peninsular
Thinking blog, where you can see what I think of the best Pacific
Northwest and weigh in from the comments section or on social
media.

Send all ideas to Miranda.Davis@Kitsapsun.com,
or find me on Twitter @MirandaDavisUDK. That’s also where I’ll be
posting photos, videos and unrefined thoughts from my
adventures.

Doug Dillard is a name we’ve seen a lot here in the newsroom.
With the Kitsap County Sheriff’s Office for 30 years, Dillard was
most recently was tasked with monitoring the county’s sex
offenders. That also meant organizing meetings with residents when,
as Josh Farley wrote, “Level 3 sex offenders change
addresses.”

Now he’s got a different job, battling a brain tumor
thought to have gone away 14 years ago. According to GoFundMe
page set up on his family’s behalf:

“Doug has an inoperable brain tumor called a glioblastoma . Brain cancers are extremely
difficult to treat and glioblastomas are among the most aggressive
tumors. Unfortunately, Doug’s is no different. His Neuro
Oncologist has Doug on a treatment regimen that includes
bi-weekly infusions, daily anti-seizure therapy, and routine
MRIs to monitor his brain tumor .”

Former Sheriff Steve Boyer wrote of a Dillard’s courage
throughout his ordeal, saying that Dillard “never became
victim,” when the tumor returned. He expressed admiration for Mary,
Dillard’s wife, calling her “an angel.”

The GoFundMe page has a goal of raising $20,000 to help the
family with expenses as Dillard goes through infusion treatments.
“We want to show Doug how much we, and his community, love and
support him,” the page’s author wrote. “We are saying, ‘Thank you
for being an amazing husband, father, uncle, and friend. Thank you
for your service. Thank you for your example.'”

Coming up later tonight at www.kitsapsun.com, we profile a 2011
South Kitsap High School grad who is now a stunt woman in Los
Angeles.

Sydney
Olson, who started in gymnastics at Mile High Gym in Port
Orchard and spent most of her time at Olympic Gymnastics Center in
Silverdale, will appear Monday on “American Ninja
Warrior.” I had never heard of it, but I learned that
contestants have to navigate a strenuous obstacle course.

Olson’s skills in freerunning and parkour — both explained in
the article which runs Sunday in the Kitsap Sun — helped her earn a
spot on the show out of 10,000 people who auditioned.

You can read Olson’s story in print tomorrow or online
tonight/Saturday when it posts at www.kitsapsun.com (I would expect
by 8 p.m. or 9 p.m PST). You can see how she did in the competition
by tuning in to “American Ninja Warrior” at 8 p.m. PST Monday on
NBC.

You can see Olson in action in these YouTube Videos.

Wins, Fails and Grunts … in which Olson shows how much work it
takes to master the moves.

BODYPOP, Official Music Video, in which she appears with social
media entrepreneur Cassey Ho. That’s her on the right in the first
frame.

Red Bull Art of Motion Submission 2014, in which she shows her
stuff, like running up trees and flipping over backwards.

This post has been edited. The original version misstated
Sydney Olson’s last name on first reference.

About two-thirds of the
way through “Smoke: How a small-town girl accidentally wound up
smuggling 7,000 pounds of marijuana with the Pot Princess of
Beverly Hills,” 2004 Klahowya High School grad Meili Cady
confesses:

“…I’d hung my last hope for happiness on my future with Ben. But
I knew that he would leave me. If I’d had the choice, I’d leave me
too. I couldn’t stand what I’d become. I was stuck with me and this
bizarre, unbearable reality that was suffocating me.”

Having read the previous 186 pages, seeing Cady come to the
conclusion, “I’d leave me, too,” might inspire you set the book
down for a moment and, if you’re a demonstrative type, yell out,
“You think?” Yelling at a book doesn’t count for normal activity in
most settings, but page after page Cady gives you reason.

For the uninitiated, Cady moved to Los Angeles after high school
to pursue her Hollywood acting dreams. Over the years she landed
some screen work, but not a lot. Finding a friend was tough, too. A
mutual friend introduced her to Lisette Lee, the “Pot Princess” in
question.

The story of what happened over the next few years was first
revealed in a 2012 Rolling Stone story, “The Gangster Princess of Beverly
Hills.” That was the first time many of us were
introduced to Cady, who was Lee’s unlikely friend. When we did
our story on Cady I was somewhat
sympathetic to her, because in five decades I can count a few times
when I’ve done things despite my suspicions because I wanted to
believe those suspicions were off base. Wanting to believe can be a
real hazard.

Reading Cady’s own written version in “Smoke,” I was less
sympathetic, and that might be a compliment to her. Cady tells us
what happened, what she did, without much effort to justify it.
It’s a gutsy move. It’s also the most accountable way to tell a
story.

The book is a fast read, reveals much that you didn’t know from
the earlier stories and could be the last we ever hear of this
tale, unless Lee starts talking or there is a movie. I don’t know
about Lee, but the movie is a real possibility.

On Monday 19 of
our ambitious, dedicated and skilled friends will run the Boston
Marathon. Bib No. 18775 is a friend of ours. Who you see here
as Luz M. Rodriguez is someone my wife, Diana, and I know as
Marcela.

We met Silverdale’s Marcela when she and Diana were teammates in
a relay that runs essentially from the Canadian border in Blaine to
somewhere on Whidbey Island. Those relays are a tough haul. Diana
had to run two extra miles when she missed a turn. Marcela herself
wasn’t sure she could tough out the last of three legs each runner
agrees to run, but she did it, making it look like it was
easy. Diana has since run the Portland Marathon and from what I can
tell is not eager to run another one.

Marcela, on the other hand, set her sights on Boston some time
ago. We’ve celebrated her progress. And since Boston is something
you have to qualify for, we’ve been especially proud of her work.
So has her home country of Chile. Marcela comes from the southern
quarter of that country and on Friday was featured in
her hometown paper. At the end of the
story she’s telling anyone that if they want to, they should go
after a goal like this one, repeating the Spanish version of the
common English saying, “If I can do it, anyone can.”

The view from Chile of
Silverdale’s Luz Marcela Rodriguez.

While I don’t agree that anyone can qualify for Boston, if it’s
not a marathon that’s in your dreams, there is something. And in
that sense, Marcela is right. If she can achieve this dream, you
can achieve yours. I have a few things I dream of accomplishing,
and finishing a marathon is one of them. Aside from the fact that
it’s hard for anyone (Well, a few people make it look pretty easy.)
to run 26.2 miles, for me to do it would prove that I had
accomplished so much more. If you’ve met me, you know what I’m
talking about. Any marathon would be my Boston.

So maybe that’s the question. What is your Boston?

Good look to all our Kitsap runners. Thanks for inspiring us to
pursue our Bostons.

Note from Esteef: I tidied this thing up quite a bit since
its initial publication. I normally give these things at
least another read or two before hitting the “publish” button, but
it was late on Friday and I spent most of the week coughing, so I
was tired and ready to go home. Had I read it at least one more
time I might have noticed a few things that needed changing,
including the fact that I misspelled Marcela’s name throughout. I
also forgot to mention that of all the Spanish or
Portuguese-speaking nations in the world, Chile is the best. It’s
not even a close contest. Some of it is the dramatic variety in the
nation’s landscape, going from the driest climate on Earth to a
point where the next neighbor to the south is a penguin. It’s
also got great beaches, mountains and enough earthquakes to
satisfy even the thirstiest of thrill seekers. I hear the wine is
quite good. The shellfish is excellent and plentiful , Chileans
have perfected the art of dressing up a hot dog and the empenadas
should be part of every death row inmate’s last meal as a
testament to our compassion for even the most vile among us. The
best parts of Chile are probably the Chileans, except for the one
in charge when I lived down there. He was a jerk.

Anyway, all this to say that most American of explanations,
“Mistakes were made.”

Note: When I first posted these photos earlier in the week,
I left out most of the details because I wasn’t sure if I might
include Ashtin Fitzwater in the story about 12s going to Arizona without game
tickets. I posted it early because other news agencies
were already getting the photo out there and I didn’t want to be
too far behind them.

So here is an expanded version of Wednesday’s post, with
more information I had then, and updates, including one that’s
humongous! And I don’t use that word or exclamation points
liberally.

Central Kitsap High School grad
(as well as Ridgetop Junior High School and Emerald Heights
Elementary School) Ashtin Fitzwater represents the 12s at his home
in Chandler, Ariz.

Ashtin Fitzwater left the Northwest in 2004 following his
graduation from Central Kitsap High School, but remains a 12,
representing in his new hometown of Chandler, Ariz.

We first posted this Wednesday, but a lot has happened
since.

Fitzwater took about five hours on a Saturday to paint the home
he and his girlfriend rent from her mother. I was skeptical, and so
was one of my editors, that a house could be painted in five hours,
but Fitzwater has skills. He graduated from Arizona State
University with a degree in housing and community development and
has worked in construction since. “I’ve painted a lot of houses,”
he said.

The Seahawk logo on the lawn was done by hand. He set himself up
to do it well, applying math to the Seahawk logo from his
construction helmet to measure out a 20-foot-by-7-foot rectangle
with corners staked with rebar. (And you kids say math won’t help
you in life.) He used string to create the box for the bird and
went to work, looking at his helmet and spraying the lawn.

This week, as you can imagine, there has been a crush of media
in Arizona, including lots from Seattle. KING-5 TV was, I think,
the first media outlet to post pictures of Fitzwater and his house.
Fitzwater’s brother, Jeremy Hunt, re-Tweeted a KING-5 photo and
mentioned he’s a CK alum, so I got him on the phone. Since then,
other Seattle news agencies have been by and the Fox affiliate in
Phoenix paid attention. A Spokane station, KXLY, has given him the
most attention, which we’ll get to shortly.

Fitzwater said he’s seen lots of people driving by to get a
look. A neighbor counted 30 cars one day. One family came by and
the mom had a Patriots jersey on, so the 12s that were with her had
fun and put duct tape over her mouth and wrapped a Hawk flag around
her as they took pictures. The mom was a willing victim, so save
the nasty letters.

Yesterday when Fitzwater arrived home he found someone had left
him a jumbo bag of Skittles. He set up a camera to see footage of
people responding to the setting. A lot of people have taken
selfies, some of them looking around nervously as if a house that’s
begging for attention is also demanding privacy. One day Fitzwater
heard a woman yelling “We found it!” to her friends. They’d been
out scouring Chandler neighborhoods looking for the Seahawk
house.

As Fitzwater and I were talking Friday a mailman stopped across
the street to get a selfie with the house behind him.

And so it has gone, but that’s not the biggest news yet. Hunt
is, as of this writing, traveling down to Arizona to watch the game
with Fitzwater, but that’s not the biggest news either.

KXLY caught the big news, Fitzwater
proposing to his girlfriend, Melissa Duke, at night as both are
standing on the Seahawk logo. The two have been together eight
years and have been talking about marriage. They’ve been talking
about it so much, in fact, that Duke kept telling Fitzwater that he
couldn’t surprise her.

She was wrong.

A friend asked Duke on a scale of 1-10 how surprised she was by
the proposal.

Can you guess her answer?

Hint: She’s a Seahawk fan, too.

Second hint: Look to the roof of the house, or any car with a
flag waving anywhere near Seattle.

Standing behind them in the KXLY video were a pair of friends,
Adam Collins (also a 2004 Central Kitsap High School grad) and
Christina Adams. They’ve been engaged two years and have been
having trouble figuring out where to get married and what kind of
arrangements to make. According to Fitzwater they now plan to get
married Sunday morning, on the Seahawk lawn.

Duke, for her part, has always dreamed of a destination wedding,
so she and Fitzwater are beginning to make their plans for sometime
in the future.

My suggestion: San Francisco, early February 2016. If all goes
well they could be there to witness the birth of the
Three-Hawks.

Maddy Herring at the Skokomish
River in Olympic National Park. Photo by Meegan Reid, Kitsap
Sun

On Sunday we told the story of Maddy
Herring, a local 21-year-old who nearly lost her life in the
Skokomish River. The story itself was certainly worth telling, but
every once in a while the story behind the story is worth revealing
to some degree. That is the case here.

Every morning and every evening we make calls to the local fire
agencies, Washington State Patrol, the coroner’s office and to
Central Communications to ask them and other local police agencies
if anything happened worth reporting. It’s just one way we learn
about things. Other times it’s people calling us, messaging us on
Facebook or Twitter or we hear something on the scanner. It’s not
the only way we learn things, but sometimes it turns into something
newsworthy. The vast majority of times there is nothing new to
report that comes from these calls. But they are worth making
because of the times there is something worth reporting.

On Monday, Aug. 25 it was my turn to make the night calls.
Included on our list of calls are three Bremerton Fire stations. My
recollection is that I called one station and the officer who
answered said there was nothing to report from the department, but
that I ought to talk to Kevin Bonsell at Station 3 because of
something he experienced while out with his family at Staircase the
day before. When I called there and talked to another department
officer I asked if Bonsell was available. I told him I had heard he
had experienced something unique on Sunday and he told me the
entire story.

After hearing what happened I was eager for someone here to get
the story in the paper for a couple of reasons. One was that there
was a public service element to it that reminded people of the
dangers rivers can pose. The second, though, was that the story had
that element of danger, but ended well for everyone. People showed
up and did what they could and Maddy Herring is alive because of
it. Bonsell said he would see if the family was willing.

My understanding is the Herring family found him again by
reaching out through someone at the Central Kitsap Fire District,
and that word got over to Bremerton through them. No one who was
directly involved was advertising a story. That makes it even more
attractive, because no one was looking for publicity just for
themselves. Bonsell didn’t reach out to me, but once I asked him to
tell the story he saw the public service benefit as well.

It took a few days but eventually Bonsell called me back with
phone numbers for Maddy and her mother. By the time I spoke with
Maddy it was a week and two days after the event. I was hoping I
could get Bonsell to go out to the site to point out where it
happened and talk on video. I had very little hope that Maddy
herself would be willing to go. When I spoke to her, though, she
was up for it, again recognizing the public service aspect of the
story. So we made plans to meet her out there on Friday with a
photographer, Meegan Reid.

The video setting is not far from where it all happened, but
it’s not exactly there. When we first got there she tried to
recognize the spot and could not right away. We eventually figured
that the river was running lower than it was the Sunday almost two
weeks before. So we filmed from a nice place to provide a good
setting for the story. As you can see, Maddy was quite good at
retelling it.

After we finished filming Maddy, Meegan and I began walking back
to our car as Maddy decided to hike further up the trail. Meegan
and I kept thinking that we had missed a turn on the trail so we
hiked a little more than we’d planned before making it back. I
decided to go the ranger’s station and see if we could get an
incident report, which was when Maddy returned from the trail. In
the interim she had found the actual spot where she was stuck and
took some pictures. She said it looked more or less the same as it
had that Sunday, but there would have been no way we could have
gone down there with our cameras. She said seeing it made her heart
race a little and she was careful not to get too close. The other
bonus was the Herrings had left two pair of flip-flops and a
T-shirt behind in all the chaos, and that they were still there two
weeks later.

A man described as a political science professor also played a
role in the rescue. I reached out to several at the different
colleges in the area and struck out. Maddy’s mother, Theresa,
called me on Friday and we spoke that day. I wrote the story and
edited the video that night.

This whole thing came about because of a regular phone call we
make in which we essentially ask, “Anything happening?”

My guess is the crews at the fire stations are not glad we
interrupt their mornings and evenings to ask that question. I’m
always glad when they tell me the calls have been routine. Some of
that is because when the calls are not routine it usually means
something bad happened to someone. The other part is if something
happened it means more work. We’re like NASCAR fans who don’t
necessarily want there to be a wreck, but if there is one we don’t
want to miss it.

Most local fire agencies, the ones who still welcome our calls,
have been very good about sharing what’s happening with us. Maybe
it’s because they see the public service element in what they tell
us. I’m sure sometimes they get disappointed in how we write what
happened. That’s the risk, I suppose. But I think the public is
well served in that relationship. And it’s because of that
relationship that we were able to tell Maddy Herring’s story.

This is how it feels. Three young people in Kitsap County died
within a month of one another.

On July 4, Josh Osborn, 17, of South Kitsap, was on an outing
with friends when he fell into the Ohanapecosh River. His body was
recovered on July 28.

On July 14, JJ Hentz, 12, also of South Kitsap, was found
floating in Island Lake. He died two days later at Mary Bridge
Children’s Hospital in Tacoma.

Jenise Wright’s parents reported her missing on Aug. 3. The last
time the 6-year-old was seen was around 10 p.m. the night before.
On Aug. 7 her body was found, partially submerged in a muddy bog
near Steele Creek Trailer Park in East Bremerton, where her family
lives. On Aug. 9, Gabriel Gaeta, a friend of the Wright family, was
arrested on suspicion of raping and killing Jenise.

On Saturday, Josh Osborn and Jenise Wright, will be mourned at
memorial services a couple of hours apart. Both are open to the
public.

Jenise’s service is at 1 p.m. at the Silverdale Stake Center,
9256 Nels Nelson Road NW.
Jenise was outgoing,
always at the center of activity at the mobile home park. She
loved the colors pink and purple.
The Wright family is accepting donations to help offset expenses.
Donations can be made online at a gofundme account or at Chase Bank
branches, under the “Jenise Wright donation account.”

Josh Osborn was “every parents’ dream” according to his
obituary, written by his family. “He was
kind, handsome, smart, funny, but most of all he had the biggest,
most loving heart. Josh loved life and he lived every day to
its fullest. He had many passions and dreams.”
A memorial for Josh is planned for 3 p.m. Saturday at the South
Kitsap High School gym. In honor of Josh, the family asks that you
wear your Seahawks or South Kitsap gear.